Lone Grove residents say land was trespassed to put in trunk line

"Trespassing. And tearing down all this timber," said Barney Allen, who also owns land in Lone Grove.

Robin Porter and Barney Allen said when they came home Monday, October 21st they found foliage cleared away and construction equipment sitting on their land.

The City of Lone Grove and North Texas Contracting are in the process of installing thousands of feet of pipe to connect residents to the new water treatment plant. But the easements for these two residents are still in court, and they say the city told them on the 18th this process wasn't supposed to happen yet.

"They won't be on our property until the assessors come and talk to us personally," said Porter. "They were going to look at the property and see what they give compensation for coming through our property."

But two days later the company started clearing brush. On the 22nd city manager Ian O'Neal said the engineers realized what was going on.

"They talked to the contractors. The contractors then advised them that the corporate office did not tell them where to stop," said O'Neal. "And that's how this all happened."

North Texas Contracting said in an email statement,"It appears our firm may have potentially cleared land where the easement was not yet legally acquired, etc. Although we have not completed our investigation of this claim nor isolated the cause of this potential miscommunication we do formally apologize that this event has occurred."

Porter and Allen said the company and mayor apologized in person, but they just hope this doesn't happen to anyone else.

"Hopefully it turn out good, hopefully everything will turn out good," Porter said.

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